~ a New Yorker's American History blog

Thinkin’ postal

State and local officials in Tennessee are mounting a campaign to have the Battle of Franklin commemorated on one of the postage stamps in the Unites States Postal Service’s ongoing recognition of the Civil War sesquicentennial. I have blogged about this each of the past two years and will continue to do so through 2015. I think Franklin has a fighting chance. For one thing, hard as it is to believe, the last stamp commemorating Tennessee was the 1862 Shiloh stamp shown at right. The Centennial stamps were indeed beautiful and this one, elegant in its simplicity, was no exception. Franklin should also benefit from what I will call, for lack of a better term, strong competition relatively speaking. The Postal Service is issuing two stamps a year in the series, and so far the choices have been easy and obvious. For 2011 there was Fort Sumter and First Bull Run. Antietam and the Battle of New Orleans were the selections for 2012. Gettysburg would have to be a lock for 2013, with perhaps the Emancipation Proclamation filling out that set. I would imagine that for 2015 we will be looking at Appomattox and the Lincoln assassination as the selections. Obviously there were significant events in every year of the conflict, but what to choose for the sesquicentennial subjects of 2014? The Battle of the Wilderness and Fall of Atlanta would have to be the frontrunners. Franklin could be a good move because a) it is somewhat less obvious and, b) adds a Western motif to a series otherwise dominated by events in the Eastern theater. I don’t know if the design fits in esthetically with the sets we have seen so far, but perhaps the USPS will go in a different direction in the rest of the series. Whatever happens, I look forward to finding out.